The present invention generally relates to an image reading arrangement, and more particularly, to an image input device for reading images (including characters) of an original document or the like.
Conventionally, the image input device has been generally of a large scale in construction requiring a beam scanning mechanism, an original document feeding mechanism, etc. as represented by an image scanner, facsimile equipment or the like, thus making it difficult to be portable. Meanwhile, with the development of an information oriented society, a simple and convenient information collecting means is desired, and as one example which has realized such a desire is the portable type copying machine now commercially available.
Although the image input device for the portable type copying machine is compact in size and capable of manually scanning over an original document, since the read image information is arranged to be immediately used for copying, it is impossible to adopt a practice for effecting input and copying of the image information at different time periods, and furthermore, the input image information is mostly used only for copying, and can not be applied to such uses as projection onto a CRT display.